


Unbounded Love

by writingdetritus



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Dwarves, Family, Gen, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingdetritus/pseuds/writingdetritus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dís explains to her sons what the inkings on her back mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbounded Love

**Author's Note:**

> I WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING CUTE AND INSTEAD I MADE MYSELF DEPRESSED  
> Again, warning: My lore is whack, so just.... deal with it if it is wrong.

“Mama, I don’t want to take a bath!” Kíli squealed, wriggling his tiny body in her arms. Dís laughed, blowing in her sons face.

“Yes you do! Fíli will be there!” Fíli’s head shot up from his whittling he had been attempting at the table.

“But mother!” Fíli whined now.

“But nothing! Come along Fíli!” Dís said happily, grabbing onto her son’s wrist and dragging him behind her. Kíli crawled his way up onto her shoulder, sliding down her back so she was only able to hold onto his feet.

Bath time didn’t happen often enough in Dís’ opinion, for it was her time to truly bond with her very young sons. She could feel Kíli trying to hit his brother, laughing each time Fíli dodged his feeble attacks. 

It took a while to actually get to the bathhouse, located outside in a small hut, because Kíli managed to escape and he and Fíli had a tussle on the grass, and then ran away and hid from their mother repeatedly. Dís only laughed the entire time.

Finally in the bathhouse, which Dís had prepared beforehand, she instructed Fíli to undress and she herself went to business on the baby of the family. 

“Why don’t you like bath time with your mother?” Dís asked, pulling Kíli’s shirt off.

“Because…,” Kíli paused, moving his body about as only a child would do, unable to stand or sit still. “Fíli’s annoying! And you tickle me!” He accusatorily pointed at his mother.

“Oh really? You’ve caught me!” And she attacked him, tickling and covering him with kisses. Kíli screeched and reached for his brother as he laughed, trying to squirm out of Dís’ arms. Fíli came to his aid and pulled into the bath with him.

Dís undressed quickly, before sliding into the water with her sons. Dís was not as stalky as some dwarf women, but her body was definitely in the traditional shape of hourglass, which her height might have diminished somewhat. Her hair was very long – uncut for many years. With the young dwarflings, Dís found it hard to leave her house, so her hair was mostly kept undone, the black locks hitting the top of her thighs, untamed. She knew it was probably a bad example to her sons, but she figured Thorin would set them straight, not very well though because he wasn’t the best example when it came to hair either. If Frerin was still alive, he would have been perfect for her sons to model after. Or even their father.

“Mama, what’s that?” Kíli asked, making his mother turn around so he could see her back. She felt his small clumsy fingers trace her spine where rune markings had been tattooed up and down the length.

“Can you read it?” She asked, testing her son.

“I can!” Fíli cried, wading over to his mother. He was always the one to please, always there to help. “The runes… are names?” He asked quizzically of his mother, his finger tracing them. Dís nodded, pulling Kíli around to her front so she could start washing him. 

“You are always covered in a layer of dirt!” Dís cried, scrubbing at Kíli’s toes. Kíli laughed, kicking his feet in protest. “Continue Fíli, read them to me.”

“Thrain… Thorin… Frerin… and papa’s name,” Fíli stuttered over the runes, trying to grasp them. “You have the Durin’s Folk’s name on your back!”

“And your fathers,” Dís reminded him, pouring water over Kíli’s head with a bucket as she spoke.

“Why mama? Why do you have uncle Thorin’s name on your back?” Kíli asked, spluttering a little bit. A painful twist in Dís’ stomach struck her. Thorin was the only person on her back that her youngest had ever known – or will ever know.

“Ah darling, I have them because they are my trunk, my roots.” Dís sighed, brushing the dark brown locks out of Kíli’s face. “Fíli dear, please please wash your hair, I’m begging you,” She asked of her older son, who was now floating around the small bath. 

“What do you mean trunk?” Fíli asked, before dunking his head under the water.

“They are my family, and they are what has held me up for many an age,” Dís explained patiently.

“Who gave them to you?” Fíli asked curiously.

“Frerin, my brother. He was quite the artist with his inking. His arms were covered in runes and pictures of the mountains and such. He did them all himself too,” Dís said, wistfully remembering how when asked, he had become overly gleeful at the prospect of painting his sister.

“Why aren’t we there?” Kíli pouted, managing finally to push himself away from his mother’s clutches and swim over to Fíli. She thought it was funny they were so good at floating around in a bath, but when it came to anything with a current, such as a stream or river, her children were like cats, and would drown like a fish out of water. 

“Do you want your names with me?” Dís asked, grabbing Fíli by the waist and dragging him to her lap. She started to scrub his hair with the bar of soap, forcing the grime to release its self from his golden tresses. 

“Yes! Yes!” The boys chimed together, Kíli splashing the water.

“Alright, where do you want your names?” Kíli swam closer to her and his brother, settling himself next to her. “Fíli, rinse,” Dís commanded.

“I want it…,” Kíli reached up and tapped the center of Dís’ chest. “Right there.”

“Why Kíli?” Dís asked curiously.

“Isn’t that where your heart is?” Kíli asked, his eyes opening wide.

“No stupid,” Fíli said, breaching the water. His now, once dark blond, gleamed with its actual sun kissed color. “The heart is here.” He hit his chest where his heart was, above the left breast.

“Don’t call your brother stupid,” Dís scolded. “But yes, that is where the heart is. You want your names over my heart?”

“Yes!” Kíli cried, before attacking his brother, obviously going to show him who was stupid. 

Dís proceeded to wash her own long hair, watching her sons play in the water. They were her moon and sun, and they indeed resided here in her heart like no other dwarf had.  
She had had Fíli a bit younger for a dwarf maiden – 99 to be exact – and it had one of many rash decisions she had made when fleeing from the Lonely Mountain. Of course, afterwards, she had decided it was the best thing she could have decided for herself, and Thorin had seemed pleased to have a nephew.  
Five years later, she was blessed with another son, only for her love – their father – to die before Kíli was even born. Kíli had been born into sadness, only to bring the light back to Dís’ face and life.

Yes, they belonged above her heart, because they were truly in it.

“Come boys, let’s get dried and dressed and I’ll start fixing something for dinner. Uncle Thorin said he would come,” Dís said, stepping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around herself, before pouncing onto Kíli who had just crawled out.

Later that evening, when Kíli and Fíli were supposedly asleep, Dís turned to her brother, who was smoking his pipe, feet up on the table. 

“Thorin,” Dís began. “When was the last time someone asked you to ink them?” 

“What?” Thorin asked, pulled out of his lull. “Not in a long while, but I still have a steady hand.”

“I would like you to ink me, above my heart,” Dís said, putting the wooden bowls back in their rightful place and turning to her brother. Thorin raised an eyebrow at her, but gave no other emotion.

“Of what?”

“Fíli and Kíli’s names,” Dís moved so she was standing before Thorin, a needle and ink held tightly in her palm.

“That should be easy enough,” Thorin said, setting his pipe aside and taking the needle and holding it above the fire, letting it turn bright red in his fingers. Dís pulled her dress down so the place she wanted would be revealed to Thorin’s callused hands.

She was silent the entire time, watching every move Thorin made as he wrote out the names of her beloveds in the runes of their people. 

The next morning she awoke her sons and showed them what she had done for them. Kíli was gleefully excited and Fíli brushed light fingers over their names.

“I’m going to get an inking!” Kíli cried, jumping on the bed. Dís caught him up in her arms, hugging him tightly as they both laughed.

“No! No you aren’t – not for a long time! Because right now, both of you are my perfect boys and you do not need any markings on you!” She ruffled Fíli’s hair and laughed.

“Then when I’m older, I’m going to get one!”

“Me too!” Fíli joined in.

“Of what my darlings?” Dís asked, tossing Kíli onto the bed and let his energy be used on the bed and not her arms.

“Your name!” Fíli said, jumping with his brother.

“My name? Really? Are you sure?” Dís wanted to laugh and cry at the same time – they were too kind to her.

“Yes!” They both said, and then the family went down stairs to eat breakfast.

-

When Fíli and Kíli fell in the Battle of the Five Armies, their hands were clasped together. The runes of their mother’s name were split between the two of them, so when they held hands, the name could be read.

They died with their hands together because of their love of one another, for their love of Durin Folk, and their unbounded love for their mother.


End file.
